Page:True stories of girl heroines.djvu/191

Rh Mary kissed her mother, and freed herself gently from her embrace; her nerves were still strung tensely up. She felt no qualm of fear.

"Mother," she said, "there was no one else to defend you and Eleanor. None else would have dared to lift a hand against a soldier of the King's. Was I to stand by and see and hear such things? God in heaven alone knows whether it was my act or his that did him to death. But even if I did strike him to the heart, is not he a man of blood? And is it not written that they who take the sword shall perish by the sword?"

"Oh, my child, my child," wept the mother, "God in His mercy grant that such a fate be not thine own!"

It was two days later when Mary Bridges stood pale and dauntless before that terrible soldier, Colonel Kirke. Her offence was judged to be a military one, and she was arraigned before him by court-martial. Lady Bridges, her self-command and dignity recovered, stood close beside her daughter; and behind them clustered a number of servants, all ready to swear upon their Bible oath that Mistress Mary had never lunged at the soldier by so much as a hair's breadth, but that the man had run upon the weapon with which she was defending her mother and sister.

But their testimony was not destined to be asked or given. Colonel Kirke was a man of few words, and of rapid decision. It was seldom that any